Why do so many mums refuse to sit with their noisy brats on planes, asks SAMANTHA BRICK
- As a frequent flyer, I've seen many appalling behaved children on flights
- Their parents have deliberately sat aisles away
- More often than not, ill-behaved children are British
- I'd happily pay an additional fee for a seat in a child-free zone of a plane
The kicking usually starts before the plane has started taxi-ing for take-off. A continual jabbing in the small of one's back that jars and shakes your seat with increasing ferocity, all delivered by a pair of size 2, Velcro-strapped sandals on the end of some excited, feral child's legs.
It's unbearably irritating and usually a sharp word to the children and a plaintive appeal to the parents yields a minute or two of peace before the whole ghastly business starts again.
But turning around during a recent flight to the UK from my home in South-West France, to admonish the children showering me with sweet wrappers, I was shocked to find the parents nowhere to be seen.
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Terror in the air: Sitting near a naughty child can be a nightmare (posed by models)
Two under-fives had been left to sit alone throughout the 90-minute flight, not because there were no seats available, but because their parents simply couldn't be bothered to look after them, and thought they deserved a bit of 'me' time.
They'd deliberately positioned themselves several rows behind their fractious offspring. Occasionally, the mother lifted her head from her novel and plastic glass of Chardonnay to call to her children at the front to 'behave themselves' - which, believe me, they had no intention of doing - while their father slept soundly on.
And I'm afraid to say this wasn't a one-off. As a frequent flyer (my freelance work brings me to the UK several times a month), and also a childless one, I've found parents are frequently abusing the online seat booking facilities on budget airlines to position themselves as far away from their appallingly behaved children as possible, using fellow passengers as free childcare.
It's selfish, ill-mannered and confirms my belief that not only are British children the worst behaved in Europe, their parents are just as bad.
You probably assume that because I don't have children I can't possibly understand the stress of travelling with them.
To which I'd reply this: I'm an adult. If I had them, I'd take responsibility for them. I certainly wouldn't travel with more children than I have hands, either - how do you control them otherwise?
Last week I paid £400 for my flight to the Midlands to attend the funeral of my grandmother, who died in July, two days before her 90th birthday.
Naturally, at the height of the holiday season, the airport, close to my home in the heart of the Dordogne, was awash with middle-class parents returning to Britain after their holidays.
They all looked tanned, relaxed and heartily sick to the back teeth of their spoilt, whiny offspring after a fortnight spent entertaining them.
On reflection, the signs that the flight wasn't going to go to plan were all there. There were children left in control of luggage trolleys, crashing into anyone who wouldn't move out of their way quickly enough. Then school-aged children refusing to use the loos without their mother in the cubicle to wipe down the seat first (yes, really).
Then there was the endless whinnying at the check-in desk because they couldn't take their bottle of Perrier water through to the departure lounge.
Samantha thinks British mothers should discipline their children instead of overindulging them
That day, I deliberately hadn't flown with one of the bargain basement airlines that frequent this airport.
Indeed I had hoped for a calm uneventful flight in order to compose myself and polish the eulogy I was due to present the following day.
Sadly, it wasn't to be. 'Daddy's tired and Mummy wants to finish her book, so we're sitting over there,' a well-dressed, tanned woman hissed at her children after boarding the plane. Then, she thrust a packet of sweets into each of their sweaty little hands before taking her husband's arms and fleeing to their seats several rows behind.
Had an emergency occurred on the plane, I would have been closer to this woman's children than she was. Had this prospect so much as even crossed their minds? I very much doubt it.
Needless to say, high on sugar, and even before the flight took off, the little darlings started. They bickered and antagonised each other before exchanging a series of kicks and punches.
For the next 90 minutes I had to listen to their mother use me as an excuse for them to behave themselves: 'The lady will shout at you if you keep chucking your sweet wrappers at her.'
No, this 'lady' didn't. But given that the mother's admonishments were barked out from the middle of the plane where her children could barely hear her, they ignored her for most of the flight, while I endured an hour-and-a-half of hell.
I used to despise middle-class mothers for hoiking passengers out of their seats if they couldn't sit next to their brood on crowded aircraft.
But little could I have imagined that one day they would wise up to the fact that no one can actually stop them dumping their fractious ill-behaved children anywhere on a plane - and hang the fact that their fellow passengers might be desperate for a bit of peace and quiet.
Granted, I'm not a parent, but I am a stepmother and my stepchildren, although now grown up, have always behaved impeccably whenever we have travelled.
I wouldn't expect anything less and nor would their father, my husband Pascal.
Children slot into the family here in France - they do not take on a role akin to that of a hallowed saint. The sense of entitlement evident in British children, bred into them by their mothers, is staggering and it's getting worse.
Other friends who don't have children are gobsmacked by mothers who time and again allow their children to redefine the meaning of hooligan.
Check in and chill out: Many parents are deliberately choosing to sit away from their children on flights for some 'me time' (posed by models)
Fifty-three per cent of British adults say they would support child-free flights
One girlfriend's husband, a successful businessman who regularly travels the globe, had to hold onto one toddler's arm for the complete journey from London to Toulouse recently because he was running riot in the aisle while his mother, seemingly oblivious to the havoc he was causing, chattered non-stop to a fellow passenger.
My friend's husband didn't need to speak to the child to know that the little monster was British. He knows, as well as I, and countless other passengers like us, that such behaviour simply wouldn't occur within families from elsewhere in the world.
You might argue that this isn't anything new. Global stars and musicians have, for decades, flown first class, while their children fly in economy. But there is a difference: they are usually flying with a nanny or other responsible adult who supervises their behaviour and attends to their needs throughout the flight.
Today, I'd happily pay an additional fee if I could guarantee a seat in a child-free zone of a plane. Meanwhile, I would urge airline bosses to make a rule that children are not allowed to travel without one or other of their parents at their side.